"Where did you go?" Sasuke asked curiously as he watched a pair of hand-knitted dolls dance all by themselves on the floor with the help of Naruto's parents.

When he had found out that his best friend had gone missing he went to the forest and screamed, desperately demanding a sign from the spirits to let him know where Naruto was. He howled and cried until his throat was raw and his brother hugged him close to his chest before carrying him home.

Naruto looked up from the dolls and noticed the insecurity in Sasuke's eyes and it reminded her that there were people in Konoha who did care about her; and that her adventure, her quest had caused them to worry about her safety.

"It was alright." She replied meekly. She didn't want to bring up Sasuke's bad memories, especially since she had enjoyed herself so much during her trip outside Konoha's walls.

Sasuke punched her arm.

"Ow! What was that for, Teme?!"

"Dobe, do you think I would've asked if I only wanted to know that it was 'alright'." His reply was chastising. "What does Kumo look like? How did you even get out of Konoha? What- "

Naruto stared and before she could help herself, she laughed and she pulled her best friend into a tight hug. She was being stupid and he was right.

So, as the handmade dolls were moved back to the tiny toybox in the wardrobe, Naruto recounted what she could of her trip. She told him about how she had woken up completely exhausted by the riverbed somewhere on the border of Hot Spring and that her body hurt a lot.

She also told him all about the super rude and gruff ghost, recounting his story and the mission that he had given her, she told him through over-exaggerated gestures and wild facial expressions but the grin never left her face.

She then told him about the main road followed along the largest rice fields she had ever seen before; and how they stretched so far, she could barely see the trees on the other side. She told him about the ghosts she had seen and that she wished she could have helped but she knew she needed to go home, back to Konoha so was forced to ignore them.

Sasuke took in every detail with curious wonderment and adored every detail that left the blonde's mouth.

Naruto didn't hesitate to tell Sasuke about secret path that led to the Southern gates of Kumo that was through the super thick woods that gave her a really cool scar across her upper leg. She told him about the nice old man who looked really mean but reminded her of the Hokage when she had gotten sick.

But Naruto fell silent for a moment as she remembered the buildings, the food she scavenged and the people.

"They…Kumo…" Her lips wobbled for a moment. "They didn't glare at me or yell when I accidently walked into them, and there was even a really nice man who taught me a little bit about this thing called rap music. He was weird, but he was loud, happy and energetic like me." Naruto beamed. "He…he was getting glared at by the other people probably because he was being loud but it was like having a big brother! He was so cool and looked like he would be there for me no matter what. Is that what it's like with Itachi?" She asked curiously.

Sasuke stared at her a moment as he ran through all the information about the random man Naruto was telling him about. "Itachi and I are already your brothers." He huffed defensively.

Big blue eyes blinked absently at him and with a small smile she said. "You are; I don't think Itachi likes me very much though."

Sasuke frowned, bitting his bottom lip. "Then, I'll tell him. 'Naruto's our sister. You have to be nice to her.' That's what I'll say." He claimed rebelliously.

Naruto hugged the boy again and giggled cheekily into his reddening ears. Naruto thanked her lucky stars that she had such an amazing friend like Sasuke and during her fit of excitement went and grabbed her mirror that was lying on her bed.

"Look, a nice man at a shop even gave this to me. It's really cool. You can talk to Kaa-san."

The black-haired boy leant closer in curiosity and then his eyes turned to Naruto as he watched her hold out her hand towards empty air as if silently asking them for their hand; and when it appeared that she got what she wanted, she moved her hand to the mirror and soon the image on the mirror began to shift and change.

Naruto grinned in success. "I've been practicing a lot to do that and now I can pull the spirits out of the mirror and put them in. Tou-chan says if I practice enough I can channel my energy through the mirror without touching spirits."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, nodded and then looked down at the mirror as his reflection began to morph.

The gentle features of a woman with bright, radiant red hair and warm grey-blue eyes met Sasuke's pitch black one. Naruto held out the mirror to Sasuke, silently asking him to hold it.

"Sasuke, this is Kaa-chan." The blonde grinned excitedly, "Kaa-chan, this is Sasuke, he's my best friend and brother."

Kushina smiled motherly at him, "It's nice to finally meet you, Sasuke-kun, my name's Kushina."

The children talked to the woman and she read them the new stories Naruto had found in her bookshelf. Sasuke later told her that Mikoto had bought them for her so she had something new to fill in her time when she wanted to stay home.


The afternoon was peaceful and when the sun slowly began to set the children burst out of the room and began demanding for the Uchiha parents' attention.

Fugaku stared at the two of them before telling them to try training and didn't say anything more before going back to his newspaper; but he then watched as the two of them frowned, looked at each other and then the pair wondered over to his wife. Naruto then asked Mikoto if they would help her cook.

"Naruto-chan, you don't have to worry yourself with cooking, you just recently got home. I'm sure you'd love a home-cook meal."

Naruto, however, was insistent. "Fugaku-san said we should train and training also means cooking right, Mikoto-san? Right?" The girl tugged on the hem of the woman's dress, wriggling her ears in that cute puppy-dog way and Sasuke jumped in on asking his mother too for cooking lessons.

Fugaku looked up from his newspaper and stared at the two children, opened his mouth and spotted the smug look on his wife's face. Fugaku returned to hiding his fac behind the paper avoiding his wife's gaze.

Technically, the children were right, cooking was a vital skill to survival and was an optional subject at the Academy but it only made survival slightly easier and maintain moral on long-term missions.

Somehow, the child had duped and undermined him. He wondered whether it was that Kushina woman, he never really knew the woman but he knew enough about and she was a trickster and enjoyed teasing him in particular. Ever since, they got married the two women in particularly loved teasing him because his resolve was so hard to break.

And, although his pride protested against watching Naruto hold the upper-hand against him, it was when he saw that smug look on his beautiful wife's face, the sight of her grinning with the red-head flashed before his eyes and he felt the bitterness wash away immediately.

Fugaku refused to admit that he almost missed the loud, prideful and rude Uzumaki woman. He wanted to mourn but for four long years he felt like he didn't deserve to. He had lived and now his friends' daughter was under their care. They should have lived.


A couple of months had passed without much issue, at least for Uzumaki Naruto, and that was because ever since the girl's adventure beyond the village's walls, her skill towards stealing, remaining unobserved, directing her parents on where they needed to be in order to redirect attention, the businesses throughout Konoha were experience a sudden loss of income that both Naruto and Kushina agreed they deserved.

If they didn't want to accept her money Naruto wasn't going to starve because of their pettiness.

But the four-year-old girl was really thriving now and she was as slick as the devil; and it was during one of these personal stealth missions that her father had accompanied her on that he realised she had a real knack for tactical evasion, traps and dodging.

It was just a shame to Minato that his beloved daughter had inherited her mother's tactic of facing problems head on without too many thoughts or questions.

So, when they were finally home and the two of them were sorting the groceries around the kitchen the older blond sheepishly turned to his daughter and asked, "Naruto, have you ever thought about becoming a ninja?"

His daughter finished putting the second loaf of bread in the freezer, looked at her dad and returned to what she was doing as she responded, "Yeah, I want to be Hokage remember -ttebayo."

Naruto felt disheartened at the fact that she had to repeat her dream to her father just to answer his simple question; Minato was very rarely around for one reason or another and it had become such a regular occurrence that despite her desire to see him as much as possible she could not hold back her bitter resentment at his constant vanishing.

"Ah, yeah, well, uh, I was wondering whether you would be interested…whether you wanted me to teach you a couple things before you start going to the Academy. Maybe aim to be top of the class." Minato offered.

He might've been Hokage and could lead an army of soldiers like nobody business but he never got the chance to be a father; but worst of all, he was the Hokage, Naruto had her moments of brilliance but the last thing he wanted was for her to realise that her father was the Yondaime Hokage and thus…eventually, he was the one that sacrificed and subjected her to the life she was currently living.

The life of stealing food from general stores just to survive because no one wanted to serve her, the life of having no friends because adults didn't want their children associating with her and the life of a child that might be pushing the division between the Uchiha Clan and Konoha wider.

Minato watch tensely as Naruto stopped half way from putting down a can of soup in the lower cupboard and turned to look at her father.

"Really?" She asked shyly. She had been disappointed before and didn't want to raise her hopes too quickly.

"Really, really. We can go ask Sasuke-kun if he wants to join us and maybe Fugaku-san will let us borrow one of their Clan's training grounds. It'll be even easier now that you have the mirror."

Naruto couldn't help the flush in her face as her mouth spread into the widest grin she could muster. "Sasuke's busy tomorrow, don't know why but yeah! That'll be awesome! I want to train! Dattebayo!"

Minato smiled softly; he knew he could never be forgiven for his sins against his beautiful baby girl but he was going to try and make it up to her in whatever way he could. His princess. His sunshine. His little Naruto.


That evening during dinner, Naruto went on and one to her mother about how she was going to be smartest kid when she started the Academy because her father was taking the time to teach her everything the Academy was and she was proudly taking her first steps to becoming Hokage.

And the next morning, after a restless but excited sleep, Naruto was up and out of the door by 8am and bursting at the seems with life and excitement.

However, Minato's information regarding the supposedly empty training ground wasn't the case because a group of recently graduated Genin team were busy training with their sensei. And, although, Naruto was disheartened and thought her father was going to cancel the training, but instead he led her to a desolate forest on the eastern side of the village and they began.

At first, Naruto was incredibly excited and immediately wanted to perform jutsu she had seen other shinobi do or throw shuriken and kunai, but then her father told her that they were going to do warm-ups and only focus on the basics that were going to be taught during the first-year Academy curriculum.

Naruto at first groaned at first but the longer she thought about her desirer to become a powerful and respected shinobi, she sucked it up.

She struggled with focussing on the task her father would give her, but Minato understood his daughter's struggles and did his best to work around them.

Minato was both observational and experienced, his daughter wasn't the first student he had who struggled with focussing on what was needed of them but instead focussed on what she thought was best for her in that moment and relied purely on her determination to fuel her motivation.

So, one day they were focussed completely on chakra exercises by sticking leaves or rocks to her forehead, many of which sliced itself into a thousand pieces or exploded due to the excessive chakra that was forced into one directly.

Minato eyed his frustrated little girl as she ran back into the forest to gather more materials and focused her chakra towards her forehead, only for it to break again. The Yondaime Hokage was a pioneer, only second to the Nidaime Hokage when it came to creating jutsus, which meant he understood exactly everything revolving around chakra.

And thus, he formed a hypothesis.

"Naruto-chan, why don't you go and find a bigger rock about the size of my palm." Minato held out his hand so his daughter could double check for herself and only a moment later the girl shot off to go find what her father had requested.

This time, Naruto didn't have as much trouble with trying to keep the rock on her forehead or stuck to her downfacing, open palm.

A bright smile broke out across her face and she stopped immediately after she was able to keep it on her hand for more than a second. Minato told her to keep the stone and referred to it as lucky and they went out to find more similar ones to it so she could practice extending her time practicing.

On other days when Naruto felt particularly lazy Minato taught her basic Taijutsu stances and a bit of ninjutsu theory, Konoha history, maths, science, economics, politics and/or anything else that caught the girl's interest.

Naruto was by no means a slow learner, she was passionate and could very well dedicate her time to something when she had the right motivation or reasoning to do it. Minato feared that once Naruto started the Academy next year, despite only being five when the new term started, the senseis were not going to be sympathetic towards her learning preference.

Other days, when Naruto was more energetic she ran laps around the forest, practiced her stances, kicks, punches and learned the basic hand seals.

And other days, Sasuke and Naruto trained in the forest together or if Itachi was home they spent time with him and pestered him for training.

Eventually, six months had eventually passed, spring had arrived and the Hokage had called Naruto to his office and told her that she was going to attend the Academy earlier than the other children.

"Why do I get to start early? Can Sasuke start early too?" She asked eagerly.

Hiruzen searched within himself as he weighed the pros and cons on whether or not he wanted to bring the Uchiha Clan into a political battle especially since it concerned the Council…

"Sasuke-kun can join you next year when it's more appropriate for him." He offered mildly.

"No! He's waaay better than me!" Naruto countered, even going so far to throw her arms out in demonstration on the scale of skill difference.

Naruto had always been a tough cookie to convince.

"Then…would you like to join me in talking to the Council and Fugaku-sama about admitting Sasuke-kun to the Academy?"

"Yeah! I'll definitely convince those crusty old coots to accept Sasuke! Dattebayo!"

Hiruzen hoped he had handled his chips correctly, at least with Naruto present his absolute law on the discussion on the Kyuubi would potentially halt Danzo from his anti-Uchiha movement and demonstrate to Fugaku that the Clan was not yet lost as long as he was willing to place his trust in someone even if it was just Naruto as the Will of Fire, the future Hokage, the next generation.


AN: Hey there lovelies,

Finally finished another chapter and in case you were wondering (or scared I went on another sudden hiatus) I had set a schedule, those of you who read my other work probably already know this, but I have broken my chapter updates into two separate weeks and will be updated on my Sundays.

WEEK 1:
-Tempest
-A Spark of Humanity

WEEK 2:
-A Little Ghost Girl
-Upcoming One-Shots

I also have a couple pieces of social media you can find me, ask questions, ask me on my thoughts on other random topics, or if you have a idea for a short story fic you're more then welcome to send me a request here:

Social Media:
Tumblr: Kuchia-chan

~~Question Corner~~

And this is a little segment I've started doing with my other fics, if you have a question but don't have a tumblr you're more than welcome to ask here and I'll feature it here. Yay!

-Chia